Six encounters that make you realize your brother is not just your brother. That he is a complete person outside of you—outside of your family. He is a lover, a joker, a thinker, a fiancé, a problem-solver, a guardian, a loud heart and a quiet mouth. He is an elegy, carried to the other side by the broken wings of an eagle. Bits of himself scattered across everything he touches, everywhere he looks, everywhere he breathes.

1

You arrive at your brother's house and he opens the door donning a striped peach and white apron. He smiles at you and it is the kind of smile that lights up his entire being. You feel welcome here.

You enter the house and officially meet your brother's fiancée. She is in kitchen wearing a matching apron of her own, and you watch as they cook dinner together. He is familiar with the kitchen, and it shows. You are not used to seeing your brother outside of your parents' home, and it shows.

At home, your mother does not allow your brother to cook because 'that is not what men do,' and your brother, being as soft spoken as he is, he never fights it. But you can see here that he enjoys himself in the kitchen. That his ever-wandering mind appreciates the challenge of an intricate meal. You can see that, in this moment, he is actually the one running things in this kitchen.

He is not here to appease his future wife; he is not here to impress. He is here because he wants to be.

2

You're eating dinner later that evening; the meal was curried tilapia, roasted potatoes, and baked broccoli parmesan. You've had firsts, seconds, and another half plate that couldn't really be counted as thirds, but still, made all the difference.

As you finish your last potato, you tell your brother and his fiancée how great the meal was. You take your plate up to the kitchen and your brother follows your lead. He collects both his plate and his fiancée's plate, and you can see from the way she doesn't argue—the way she just looks into his eyes and smiles—that he does this often. That she has grown used to being looked after by him.

3

You are with your brother's fiancée in her bedroom, having your first of many heart-to-hearts, and already, you feel like old friends. You are sharing stories of your brother with each other—allowing each other to learn more about who he is on the other side. You have been sitting here for hours, the conversation like a well that fills itself up from the soil below.

Once you've said it all, more always comes.

Your brother enters the room to bring you both some mint ginger tea. Neither of you asked him for it, but you didn't need to. Your brother already knows that his fiancée likes to have something warm whenever she stays up late.

He smiles at his fiancée and then looks between the two of you. No suspicion, no mistrust, only a subdued happiness. You can see that your brother is pleased by the sight of his fiancée getting to know his sister. That her happiness is his happiness, her joy is his joy.

When your brother leaves, his fiancée sips her tea and tells you of how he does this for her most nights—often without even thinking about it. How it had become part of his routine. A warm drink for her and some stolen kisses for him; their two midnight snacks.

She tells you of how she had mentioned to him that she always drinks something warm before she can fall asleep at night. She had mentioned it just once, back before they ever lived together—one night when they were up late talking on the phone—and he had never forgotten.

4

You're lying on the bed in your brother's guest room. There is a quiet knock on the door and your brother enters. He joins you on the bed and asks you what you think of his fiancée.

You tell him the truth. That she already feels like a sister to you. That you're looking forward to the day when she officially becomes family. That you can already see how beautiful their children will be. How much love this house has yet to hold. And as you speak, you can see in your brother's eyes that he has already had all these thoughts himself. That he, too, has envisioned the abundance yet to come. The family that will soon exist within this family.

A stillness falls over you both, and in this stillness, you feel compelled to speak. You're not used to sharing your thoughts without being prompted to—without them being pried from your iron clutches—but the calm in your brother's presence brings forth the storm buried within you. It's something about the way he welcomes the stillness. The way he chooses not to hold his breath in the silence, but instead, to breathe through it. To listen through it. To hold space for the things you have yet to say.

You tell your brother that you've been thinking of moving back to Ayiti recently. That Stéphanie now lives in Port-au-Prince and will have space for you in her apartment come next month. That you've been wanting to quit your job for a while now. That simply the thought of having a way out of this country has done more for your depression than all the Prozac you've ingested in the past year.

You want to tell him that you think you're in love. That, on some level, you may be using Ayiti as an excuse to run away from the possibility of a hurt you have yet to experience. That not a minute goes by where you're not thinking about your East African Adonis. About how he walked away from you and you let him.

You almost tell your brother this, but you don't. And your brother can see that you're holding back. That you're clutching the sharpest bits of yourself too close to your heart. He can see that you're hurting yourself, but he knows better than to tell you not to. He knows by now that you never listen to anyone but yourself.

By now, he has learnt to trust that you will find your own way.

Your brother tells you that he's happy for you, and he is. He asks you how Stéphanie is doing and you tell him she's fine. That she asks of him often. And then, you ask your brother if he ever thinks of moving back to Ayiti.

All the time, he tells you, and you're not surprised by this answer.

It's only natural for one to long for something known. Something familiar. Now that your brother is starting a new life with his fiancée though, you know he cannot move back. That he will not move back. But at least you will ask him to visit you. To bring his children with him when he comes so that they, too, will know where they come from. So they will know their family does not begin and end in this house.

It's getting late, and you can see that your brother is ready to leave, but that there is something holding him back. You try to practice holding space. To practice breathing through the silence and listening for what comes next.

You listen, and your brother speaks. He tells you that he spoke with your sister a few days ago. That she recently broke up with your ex. He asks you if you can reach out to her because she's having a rough time. Because she misses you a lot.

There are a lot of things you want to say to your brother. You want to tell him to fuck off. To mind his own business. You want to ask him if he thinks this time has not been just as rough for you. To ask him if he's ever told your sister even once to reach out to you through it all. If he was ever worried about how you felt, having lost both a sister and a boyfriend in one fell swoop. You want to tell him that your sister knows where you live. That she has your phone number saved. She could reach out if she really wanted to, but she hadn't.

You want to tell your brother all of this, but you're afraid it will stress the fragile peace that is still being built between the two of you, and so all you tell your brother is that you can't. That you're not ready. He asks you when you will be ready—if you'll ever be ready—and you tell him you don't know. You ask him why he would even pressure you to do something like this after everything your sister had put you through, and he tells you it's because you're family.

He tells you it's because, despite everything she put you through, he knows that you still love her. He knows that you do not want her to suffer the same way you have.

5

It's the morning of your brother's birthday.

He and his fiancée are both seated at the dining table, working on their laptops. You are on the couch, supposedly watching tv, but really, you're just watching them. You're fascinated by how vulnerable they are with each other. How one never hides a smile from the other, never passes up a kiss from the other. How they're not afraid of sharing the full extent of their affection with each other—not afraid of it ever being too much. And how that lack of fear is exactly why it never is too much. That lack of fear is exactly what creates the space for all their love.

Your brother's fiancée leaves to go to the toilet, and once she is gone, your brother leans over the table and types something into her laptop. He then places it back where he found it and returns to his work. When his fiancée returns, she frowns at her laptop screen, but slowly, as she reads the words on it, a grin stretches across her lips. You don't know what was written, but you know it has made her morning.

You watch as they look at each other in that way that makes even you feel like you're no longer in the room. You know what it's like. Although it's been a while, you have been looked at like that before.

You will soon be looked at like that again.

6

When guests start to arrive for the party, your brother takes his time with every single one.

This doesn't surprise you. By now, you've accepted that the distant, moody brother you grew up with is not the man everyone else knows. You are also unsurprised by how happy all the guests seem to be here, around both your brother and his fiancée. How everyone is quick to take off their coats and shoes, eager to make themselves comfortable. Eager to stay.

It makes you wonder if things have always been like this for your brother. If, growing up, the reason he was always so eager to get away from the house and from your family was because he had a chosen family of his own waiting for him right outside the door.

Had people always liked your brother this much? You weren't sure. But then again, how could you be? You'd never spent much time with your brother outside of your parents' home. Both the one here, and the one you had grown up in.

At this birthday party, you cannot tell who is a friend of your brother's and who is a friend of his fiancée's. As different as they are, they have slowly become a unit, and it shows.

And when it's time to eat—when your brother's fiancée is in the kitchen, struggling with the hot pans—you see the way he looks over at her. The way he begins to shift his body away from the person he is talking to. And so you run to the kitchen to help her before he can. So that he doesn't have to.

Still, he comes.

↠ • ↞

It's time for cake, and as you watch your brother cut his cake and feed his fiancée the first slice as though it was their wedding, you find yourself stunned for the millionth time by how beautiful their relationship is. The way your brother cares for your fiancée in a way that you have never been cared for by any man.

It makes you miss Him.

It makes you miss the way he was thoughtful about the little things that most people overlooked. The way he would always ask if you had eaten, always let you play your music first, always tell you how beautiful you were whenever you caught him staring. You may have only spent two weeks together, but even now, you know that if you were to ever let him, he would care for you like this.

It's Valentine's Day, and you wonder if maybe that's a sign.

Of course your brother's birthday has always been on February 14th, but this year feels different. The fact that he invited you up to his house for the celebration this year. The fact that this visit has opened your heart; that you've made so many connections in only one afternoon. The fact that you've been wondering if you should go and see Him for a while now. And the fact that your brother lives halfway between your city and your parents' city...

It couldn't all be a coincidence.

Right now, it would take you less than two hours to drive from here to His house. You know that if you leave soon, you could be there by sunset, and so, you decide, fuck it.

If this isn't a sign, then what is? If now is not the time, there will never be one.

You say your goodbyes to the partygoers. You hug your brother and his fiancée, and you tell them that you'd like to come visit them again soon. That you really enjoyed spending this time with them.

They're in agreement, sad to see you go early, but happy to have had the time they did with you. And your brother can see in the way you move that you're not leaving to get away from them; you're heading towards something. He wishes you good luck and you can see that he is proud of you even if he doesn't know where you're headed.

Your brother's pride gives you the power to follow through. You were convinced that once you got in your car, you would end up just driving home, but you don't. You don't drive home, and two hours later, you're sitting in His driveway, trying to build up the courage to get out of your car and ring the bell.

And it's here, as you're sitting in your still-running car, that your phone rings and His name flashes across the screen.

For a second, you wonder if he can see you from inside the house. If he's been watching you as you sat in your car for the past ten minutes, talking to yourself. Trying to convince yourself not to peel out of the driveway and speed home.

Holding your breath, you answer the phone, not sure what to say. You hadn't come here with any prepared words, you had only brought yourself, hoping that that would be enough.

Silently, you hold the phone to your ear. You can hear him breathing on the other end, and you're unsure if he will speak first.

"Hello?" he says.

"Hi. How are you?" you ask.

"I'm fine," he says, but his voice is unconvincing. "Um, weird question, but where are you right now?"

Oh shit, you think. He definitely knows.

You try to think up an excuse that makes you seem less desperate than you actually are, but you come up with nothing. Finally, all you can say is, "What?"

He repeats himself, and you do the same.

You're sure you seem crazy now, but apparently, he finds it endearing. He laughs softly, and the sound of his laughter does violent things to your body. It drags you right back into the winter wonderland. To the feeling of his skin on your skin. To the sound of his breaths, throaty, gasping, as they fan your ear.

"I'm asking because, um...funny story, but I'm actually standing outside your apartment door right now," he says, chuckling nervously. "I've been here for a while. I kind of just assumed you weren't home, but if you don't want to see me, you know, that's also okay. I can leave."

"No, that's not it," you blurt out. Maybe too quickly, but you don't really care. It doesn't matter anymore. "I, um..." You can't help laughing to yourself. "Oh my God, this is going to sound crazy, but I'm literally sitting in your driveway right now," you say. "I'm looking at the fern you moved outside."

"Holy shit," he says, and you agree. Holy shit indeed.

There's a silence, but it isn't awkward, it's appreciative. This is a crazy situation, and although you would've liked to see him right now—to hold his hands and look into his eyes—in a way, this is better. It says more about how the both of you feel than your words ever could. The fact that he drove five hours to see you on Valentine's Day was more reassurance than a thousand 'I love you's could ever be.

Of course, you still want to talk to him in person though, and so you decide to meet each other halfway.

You decide to meet (almost) where you first met. At the diner right off the side of the highway.

~ THE END ~

(of the wattpad version)

Wow. Thank you so much for being here if you're here, thank you for engaging with the story and the characters with care, thank you for supporting my work, I love and appreciate all of you so so much<333

As I mentioned at the start of the story, the final few chapters of chevelle's story will be on radish only. There are 6 more chapters and 2 bonuses up on Radish now!! head over there to check them out if you're interested

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<3

-nabi